FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE NEWS MEDIA CONTACT
MORGAN BROMAN (202) 418-2358
Report No. CS 99-4 CABLE SERVICES ACTION March 29, 1999
CABLE TELEVISION UPPER TIER RATE REGULATION ENDS MARCH 31, 1999
Pursuant to a sunset provision adopted by Congress in the 1996 Telecommunications Act,
rates for cable television upper tier programming services ("cable programming service tier" or
"CPST") provided after March 31, 1999 will not be subject to Commission review and regulation.
The 1992 Cable Act established a process whereby cable equipment and "basic" tier cable
rates would be subject to regulation by state and municipal governments in those areas where
effective competitive was absent. For regulatory purposes, basic tier service includes broadcast
signals, local public, educational, and government access channels and other services the system
operator chooses to include in the same package with these channels. Basic tier service is
typically the lowest price tier of service that all subscribers receive. The cable programming
service tier includes all video programming distributed over a system that is not on the basic
service tier and for which there is no per channel or per program charge. It is this cable
programming service tier that will no longer be subject to rate regulation after March 31, 1999.
The Commission, however, will continue to process complaints regarding rates for services
provided prior to March 31, 1999.
Since 1993, the Commission has been receiving and disposing of complaints from cable
television subscribers and local franchise authorities regarding rates on the cable programming
service tier. During this period of time, the Commission has resolved almost 18,000 complaints
involving 5,700 cable communities. Approximately $100 million in consumer refunds have been
ordered by the Commission.
In the future, the Commission's rate regulation role will be limited to establishing the
framework and rules pursuant to which the local, basic tier regulation will take place. Other
statutory requirements contained in the Communications Act will continue to apply to cable
television operators after the March 31, 1999 sunset of CPST rate regulation. Among the
remaining rules are the program access rules that are designed to foster competitive access to
vertically integrated satellite service programming, pole attachment and conduit access and rate
regulation, mandatory local broadcast signal carriage, ownership, technical standards and signal
leakage, retail availability of customer premises equipment ("navigation" devices), closed
captioning, and commercial leased access requirements.
TTY: (202) 418-7172